Loverboy Frontman Mike Reno on Reuniting With Bob Rock, Touring With Journey Again After 30 Years

Bob Rock has returned to the fold to produce two new songs for a new collection entitled Rock 'N' Roll Revival (due Aug.14), from legendary AOR heroes Loverboy. The album includes nine of the Canadian rockers' classic hits recorded live, primarily at a 2012 Casino Rama concert in Rama, Ontario.

This past weekend (July 21), the band - which has sold more than 10 million albums worldwide since forming in 1979 in Calgary, AB, and is best known for such hits as "Working for the Weekend" and "Turn Me Lose" - kicked off an extensive North American arena tour with Journey and Pat Benatar, featuring Neil Giraldo, which will keep them out on the road into December (dates below).

Rock, who was in the band The Payola$ at the time and lived in the same province (British Columbia), engineered Loverboy's 1980 self-titled debut, 1981's Get Lucky, 1983's Keep It Up, and 1987's Wildside, before going on to produce such heavyweights as The Cult, Mötley Crüe, David Lee Roth, Metallica, Bon Jovi and Bryan Adams.

"We've always been in touch off and on," Reno tells Noisecreep. "We've talked to him about different projects and he's been so busy. We were always saying to each other, 'Let's do something,' and it ended up he called us and said, 'Listen, I'm going to be in Vancouver during Christmas, let's get together and go in the studio.'

"He was in the middle of doing a [Michael] Bublé record. He wanted to take a week off or something so - he must be a workaholic - he says, 'Let's get together on my week off.' So we pounded out a couple of new songs that he helped us with. It was cool that he instigated the whole thing.

Watch "Turn Me Loose" Video

"It was a fun time for me because it was my birthday weekend [Jan. 8 is his exact birth date] so I spent the weekend just recording and hanging out with Bob and the guys in the band, right in downtown Vancouver; it was great. We did it all really fast the way Loverboy always recorded. We just set up and play."

The title-track, another new song, was self-produced. The rest of the material, Loverboy classics - "Turn Me Loose," "Working for the Weekend," "Lovin' Every Minute Of It," "The Kid Is Hot Tonight," "Lucky Ones," "Always On My Mind," "Queen of the Broken Hearts," "When It's Over" and "Hot Girls in Love" - are live tracks from several shows.

"'Turn Me Loose" and "Working for the Weekend" were recorded live in Charlotte N.C., in 2005; the rest in March 2012 in Rama, Ont., except for "Always on my Mind," which was recorded live in Winnipeg, MB, in 2005. "Mike and I rewrote some of the lyrics, with the theme of the album title in mind," Dean told Noisecreep in an email. "We sang it at his house in Vancouver."

Watch "Working for the Weekend" Video

Reno recalls the day the two started running through all the live tracks they had amassed in recent years. They had no intention at the time of using them for a live album.

"We record live [shows] all the time and we sat around listening to these tracks and Paul and I went, 'These are some of the best recordings we've got in a long time," says Reno.

"They were mostly recorded at Casino Rama Toronto [actually 2 hours outside]," Reno says. "It was one of those nights when Matthew, our drummer, was like spot-on, full of energy. He looked like he was 19 years old again. It happens once in a while that everybody just sparks and this was one of those nights.

"Paul says, 'Listen to this,' and he plays me a tape, and I says, 'That's like perfect.' He says, 'That was the other night.' I says, 'What else do you got?' He says, 'Listen to this song.' So we start listening to all the songs and I went, 'Wow. Cool.'"

Reno feels the studio tracks and live tracks work together on one album because of the way Loverboy approaches recording.

"When we go into the studio, it's basically a live recording too. This is basically what we've done right from the beginning, which is the fun thing about us. A lot of bands they made their recordings in the studio kind of un-fun thing; for us, we stay in there the whole time and play everything, and then a little bit later when we listen, we might change one or two things.

"So most of the stuff we do – whether it's live in front of an audience or whether it's live in a studio, that's always been the fun part of Loverboy. We push ourselves to play it so good every time, which is neat when you consider that we've been at it for 30 years."

Watch "Queen of the Broken Hearts" Video

Also kind of neat is that this tour the band just started with Journey is 30 years after the two bands last toured together.

"We both had songs the top 10," Reno recalls. "They had the Escape album out and we had the Get Lucky album out. The Escape album was their biggest album ever and Get Lucky was our biggest album ever. So that was a tour and a half.

"People still talk to me abut the time they saw us together because it was a co-headlining type deal because everybody was totally into both bands. What a fun tour. I remember like it was yesterday so this is going to be the same, except 30 year later. It's kind of like a time warp. It's like Outer Limits," he laughs.

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Rock 'N' Roll Revival will be out on Aug. 14. Catch Loverboy on tour with Journey and Pat Benatar on the following dates: